Scanned PDF to text with OCR
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Compare free and paid accessRecognize Scanned PDF content and export TXT with AlphaPDF Premium. Select languages and review the recognized result.
Extract a plain-text transcript for searching, copying or text analysis. Use the original scan when available; adding resolution later cannot recover missing characters.
Plain text loses page styling and table structure. Check reading order before using the transcript. Proofread names and numbers; handwriting is best-effort.
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Output quality is under review. This tool is not currently recommended as a reason to purchase Pro. Check all output against the source.
What it does
This tool reads the text in a scanned PDF and gives it back as a plain text file. All recognised text is saved as a simple .txt transcript in reading order, easy to search, paste or feed into other tools. Scanned PDFs usually come from an office scanner or a scanning app, with one page per image. The cleaner the scan, the better the result, so use the original file rather than a copy that was printed and scanned again.
When to use it
Pick this when you only need the words from a scanned document, for quoting, searching, translating or pasting into an email. It is the quickest output to check and the easiest to feed into other tools, because there is no layout to get in the way.
How to use Scanned PDF to text with OCR
- Sign in with an account that has Premium access.
- Upload .pdf files. Each file can be up to 50 MB, with up to 25 files per batch.
- The output is set to TXT. Select the recognition languages and scan cleanup options. Review the available settings and choose a 1, 7 or 30-day retention period.
- Start the job, then download and check the result before its retention period ends.
Related conversion options
- OCR text export
- Scanned PDF to Word with OCR
- Scanned PDF to Excel with OCR
- Scanned PDF to Markdown with OCR
- Scanned PDF to JSON with OCR
- PNG to Word with OCR
- PNG to Excel with OCR
- PNG to Markdown with OCR
- PNG to JSON with OCR
- PNG to text with OCR
- JPG to Word with OCR
- JPG to Excel with OCR
- JPG to Markdown with OCR
- JPG to JSON with OCR
- JPG to text with OCR
- TIFF to Word with OCR
- TIFF to Excel with OCR
- TIFF to Markdown with OCR
- TIFF to JSON with OCR
- TIFF to text with OCR
Before you start
Plain text loses page styling and table structure. Check reading order before using the transcript. Proofread names and numbers; handwriting is best-effort.
If the scan has two columns, read a few lines of the transcript to make sure the columns were read one after the other and not mixed line by line. Recognition is never perfect. Names, amounts and dates deserve a careful check, and handwriting is read on a best-effort basis. Select every language on the page so the right characters are expected.
Processing limits
Up to 50 MB per input; 25 files and 500 MB per batch. PDF limit: 2000 pages. Up to 2 active jobs per account. Output limit: 1000 MB. Renderer limits can reject especially large pages or images.
Example output
An inspected example is not available for this tool yet. Review the supported formats and limitations before processing.
Common questions
Does it keep the page breaks?
The transcript follows the pages in order. Formatting between pages is not kept, so add your own markers if you need them.
My PDF already has text. Do I need OCR?
If you can select words in the PDF, it has a text layer. Try the regular PDF conversion tools first.
Is any formatting kept?
No. Plain text has no bold, tables or layout. Use Word or Markdown if you need structure.
Which languages can it read?
Choose the languages from the list before you start. Recognition works best when every language on the page is selected.